Acorn Productions Presents THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 2/24-3/11

Acorn Productions, a non-profit company based in the Dana Warp Mill in downtown Westbrook, continues off its 2nd season of Studio Series presentations with Harold Pinter's first full-length play The Birthday Party. Long-time Acorn collaborator and veteran theater artist Michael Howard directs an ensemble of 6 actors in a production that will be staged in a modified arena set-up in the Acorn Studio Theater.

About the show: "The Birthday Party features Pinter as his most mysterious and electrifying. In the play, Stanley, a boarder away on holiday, is terrorized by two men from his past association with a shadowy organization of questionable repute. Acorn's production features Equity actor Harlan Baker, company members Joshua Brassard, Joe Quinn and Jeffrey Roberts, along with guest artists Elizabeth Guest, and Kat Moraros. The show runs from February 24 through March 11, 2012, with performances Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2pm."

Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for students and seniors, and may be purchased on-line at www.acorn-productions.org or by calling 854-0065.

Acorn states: "The late, great Harold Pinter, in his first full length play, The Birthday Party, brings us a world from 1958 very like the one we live in today: devoid of reliable answers. He creates a world with a prose of diamond hard lucidity where what is said and done are perfectly clear; it is the rest -- the rationalizing clutter and exposition, that is missing. Pinter legitimized uncertainty as viable drama. The Birthday Party titillates, amuses and terrifies. For Stanley Webber, the prodigal member of some undefined "organization," safety is an illusion and at any mysterious moment strangers might come to the door and take him, or those who protect him, away. As to why the avengers from "the organization" have come, we don't know, they won't tell us -- Has Stanley betrayed this "organization"? Although the threat that his safety net will not hold pervades the play, laughter antidotes the menace and we are left as an audience with oxymoron combinations of mirth and dread."

"The Birthday Party delights audiences with oddball wit, ribaldry, philosophical flights and bizarre series of small shocks accompanied with their eloquent partners, pause and silence. Watch Meg Boles mother and smother her boarder, Stanley; watch Lulu lose her innocence; watch McCann grotesquely revive his partner, Goldberg; watch a simple birthday party turn vicious. All of the action of the play is intensified by the intimate nature of the Acorn Studio Theater which makes the audience feel not so much observers but actual participants as the drama unfolds before them."

Acorn Productions' mission is to invigorate the community of performing artists in Southern Maine. Acorn seeks to nurture new performance pieces, develop artist collaborations, train new talent, and make the arts accessible to a wide spectrum of the general public. Acorn accomplishes these goals by mounting annual festivals that are open to a variety of artists as well as professional performances by local actors in both traditional and non-traditional venues. Ticket prices for these performances are maintained at an affordable level in order to lower economic barriers for potential audience members. Acorn also offers educational programs, including acting classes and workshops, and acts as an umbrella 501(c)3 organization for grassroots organizations or individual artists seeking to become more active members of the performing arts community. The addition of classic theater to Acorn's Studio Theater line-up is an attempt to offer Metro-West audiences a chance to see professional theater without having to drive into Portland.

CALENDAR OF PERFORMANCES

Who: Acorn Productions

What: The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter

Where: Acorn Studio Theater, Westbrook

When:
Friday, February 24th at 7:30p.m.
Saturday, February 25th at 7:30p.m.
Sunday, February 26th at 2 p.m.
Friday, March 2nd at 7:30p.m.
Saturday, March 3rd at 7:30p.m.
Sunday, March 4th at 2 p.m.
Friday, March 9th at 7:30p.m.
Saturday, March 10th at 7:30p.m.
Sunday, March 11th at 2 p.m.

How Much: $15 adults and $12 students and seniors

FMI: 854-0065 or www.acorn-productions.org

oshua Brassard and Elizabeth Guest

oshua Brassard and Elizabeth Guest

Joe Quinn, Joshua Brassard, and Harlan Baker